Edelweiss -- Rough Intro

I will never forget reading about and watching re-enactments of Flight 93. I almost instantly weep just thinking about a husband calling his wife to say “I love you,” or a daughter phoning her mother to apologize for foolish youth and to deliver salutations. I envision two strangers holding hands to recite the Lord’s Prayer with the reality of heaven and hell bearing down. I can hear loved ones screaming “why?” I can feel a father squeeze a mother, clinging to each other as the phone lines cease to carry their son’s voice. Tears fall on tray tables. Fingernails dig into armrests. 2,973 people died that day – 42 of them aboard Flight 93. These numbers are impossible for me to ingest, but I somehow feel a connection to the individuals.

I live in Mobile, Alabama, and at least once a week, I drive across the bay. The water is real to me -- the waves, the birds, the boats. I can look out my window, and without actually dipping in my toe, I am certain of the water’s existence; it is there, right under me. But of all the times I have stared out to where the ocean touches the sky, I understand that I have never seen the entire Gulf. It’s just too big. It’s physically impossible for me to hear the surf in Jamaica while watching a fisherman on the causeway. The ocean is perceivable only in fragments, just as the utmost of tragedy resides in the person, not the death toll.

Consider this: World War II claimed the lives of 62 million people, 400,000 of which were American. That’s 135 times the amount of Americans who perished on September 11. I can study the simple number, 62 million, and be appalled by it, but somehow, I find that empathy reigns when I see images of New York policemen’s limp bodies shattered by burnt rubble. People died all the same, be it in 1941 or 2001. The same love caressed cold cheeks in pine boxes, clutched discolored photographs soiled with dirt and blood, and uttered the same prayers and endured the same fears. The evil in man, if only for a moment, scoured its earth taking pains to scar whatever stood in its way.

In Germany, the World War II death toll peaked at 1.8 million civilian lives. Although I would like to believe that 1.8 million swastika-bearing Nazis were extinguished, I know this can’t be true. Many of these deaths must have been every bit as real and unbearable as the passengers’ of Flight 93. One I recall was of a young girl who was shot while running down the cobblestone streets where she had once roller skated. Another was a young boy who was bombed through the window of the living room where he had once spent hours learning to play the piano. There were mothers dragged lifeless from the attics where they had once gone to visit their stored wedding gowns, while fathers were slain in the doorways of the homes in which they had taken pride building – in which they had hoped to share a lifetime with their wives and children.

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The first memory of my grandmother was her voice. It was different from that of my other family members’. It carried joy in waves of elongated vowels, and had deep throated consonance. It was clumsy and would often make me giggle whenever it tripped over words like “ketchup” and “ chocolate.” When she would call my name, both the “z” and “th” came out as a hiss. “Elissibiss.” I never corrected her, and it hurt my feelings when my cousins would mock her for it.

She almost always smiled. I guess she knew that even the worst of mistakes were not that catastrophic -- not in the grand scheme of things. Her indigo eyes would tighten and her cheeks plumped and rose. People say I have her eyes -- of all her many children and grandchildren, I am the only one that turned out with blue eyes.

My grandmother had a taste for the finer things in life. This became especially evident after my grandfather passed away. To this day, she is the only white-haired lady in Opelika, Alabama who drives a fiery red Cadillac. Red was her favorite color. She had red coats, red shoes, red handbags, and red gloves. The Neiman Marcus catalogs in her bathroom were always dog-eared on the red blouses and ruby necklaces.

She always smelled of lavender, clean and crisp. She bathed in a French soap stamped “Pre de Provence.” She was a connoisseur of perfumes, and one of her favorites was Dolce and Gabbana, though maybe it was because it came with a red cap, and packed in a red box. She even taught me to tear the fragrance samples from catalogs and hide them in my underwear drawer. I suppose she even wanted her underwear to smell of D&G.

At church, I would always cross my fingers and say a quick prayer that Gran-Gran would invite me to Red Lobster after mass. My father was a great cook, and he could never justify spending the money to take us to dinner if he could cook the meal himself, and just as well. My grandmother was the only chance I had to inhale cheese rolls and indulge myself in crab legs. Lucky for me, she could eat shrimp scampi until she turned pink.

Her house was chock full of interesting trinkets, old artifacts, and closets that yearned for young girls to explore. She would let me dress up in my mom’s old clothes. One day, she gave me an old mechanical watch she wore in nursing school and accented it with a gemstone ring, wrapped in mounds of Scotch tape so it would not slip from my finger. She would let me play with her old evening bags and change purses. All her bags exuded old perfume, and hidden in the inside zipper was always an old handkerchief, or a folded piece of pink tissue.

My favorite place in her house was the wood-paneled closet in her hallway. Inside were old Sinatra records and the Chipmunks singing Christmas carols. There were old books too – a Bible written in old German, a pictorial of horses, and a dog encyclopedia with a funny picture of a Great Dane driving a car on the back cover. There were brittle, yellowed newspaper clippings from every event she had considered noteworthy – births, deaths, Hurricane Fredrick, and the restoration of Governor Samford’s mansion.

When I was in the seventh grade, I developed a short-lived fascination with the assignation of John F. Kennedy. One Saturday, I brought over books by Jim Garrison, explaining to her how any being with at least two good brain cells could easily debunk the Warren Commission. She laughed and retreated to the closet. When she emerged, she was clutching the actual 1964 Life Magazine depicting Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle that was used to kill President Kennedy. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I begged her to leave it to me in her will.

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My mother told me about Gran-Gran and The War. I cannot recall how or where the subject arose, but I remember feeling special to have been born her granddaughter.

My German heritage had been a given for as long as I could remember. When I was only four-years-old, I flew over to visit my great grandmother in Bavaria when she was ill. I even remember playing ball in my family’s sheep pasture on a foothill of the Alps. My great grandmother’s new husband even gave me my own lamb. We named him Mauschi.

This idea of war was new, and I did not understand what it meant. I do remember my fourth grade class reading a chapter book about two friends, Annemarie and her Jewish friend, Ellen. The novel was called Number the Stars. In it, Annemarie’s family risked their lives to save Ellen from the clutches of the S.S.

With every page Mrs. Rosenblatt turned, I thought about Gran-Gran. I wondered whether she had encountered any of these people called “Jews.” I hoped that she would have been friendly and honorable like Annemarie.

I wondered why Jewish people had been persecuted during The War. I had never met any Jewish person in my life, and did not know anything about their religion or culture. All I could think of was the Passion play at Good Friday mass, and wasn’t it the Jews who had chanted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Maybe that was why people had sought revenge, but as for Ellen, she had never hurt anyone. I felt sure that people like her and her family would never intentionally bring harm to others.

“Yo vi una araña!”

The rain was the least of my worries. I had gotten used to it the first few hours. Besides, what else would I expect in Bahia Solano, Colombia, arguably the rainiest city in the world? I was more afraid of slipping on one of the mossy rocks we were using for stepping stones. I was already feeling the throb from a twisted ankle, so I walked slowly and methodically, paying careful attention to how and where each step was placed. I was relieved when we reached a tree that had fallen in the river. I felt my forehead unwrinkle and it was then I realized I was concentrating so hard on walking. The tree was much easier to tread than the stones that were slippery and had the river rushing over them almost up to my knees.
Having passed the tree and gone back to concentrating on my steps with a wrinkled forehead, I almost didn’t notice when Elkin yelled something in Spanish. Our translator had chosen not venture out with us this time, so I had no way of knowing what he was saying to me. He was pointing and yelling and I was getting nervous because I wasn’t sure if what he was saying was important or just informative. I motioned and pointed and tried to decipher his babble, but it was to no avail.
After much frustration, he slowed down and said each word as though he were talking to a stupid person and put motions with them so that I could understand. “JOE,” he yelled pounding on his chest as though to indicate himself; then, “BEE,” dramatically pointing to his eye and pulling his eyelid down so I would know he saw something. He ended his sentence with widening eyes, and by slowly emphasizing each syllable of the last phrase with a bobbing head: “OON-UH AH-DAHN-YUH!” With his last bit of babble, he walked in the direction he was pointing and pointed to a specific rock. I had lost my contacts earlier when I fell in the river, so I could not figure out why it was so important for him to tell me that he saw a rock. After all, there were hundreds of them at the bottom of the river.
Exasperated and tired of trying to understand Spanish, I gave in and walked over to the rock so that we could move on. My fingers were beginning to prune and my clothes were clinging to me with no hope of drying out unless I got inside the hotel, so I was in a hurry. I was planning on just humoring him and acting amazed at the stupid rock. I was in the midst of devising my plan and my dramatic amazement when I got close enough to realize what he was actually pointing at.
There was a spider as big as my hand resting on the rock. I am not afraid of spiders, but I was in the jungle and I didn’t know what this one was capable of, not to mention that it was the largest spider I had ever seen. For all I knew, it could have been some undiscovered species of jumping spiders native to the Rio Choco that jumps on its prey and quickly wraps it in super-strength web, and I could look mighty tasty. These things were running through my mind and I almost ran for my life, but I decided since Elkin did not display the least amount of fear, it was probably okay to stand a safe distance away and look. I did decide to stay far enough away, though, so that if it did decide to jump at me I would see it coming and have time to turn and dart away before it viciously devoured me in one gulp.
We stopped and admired for a minute and Elkin wouldn’t stop with that Spanish babble. He kept speaking to me like I understood. I just nodded and smiled and tried to make facial expressions according to his tone of voice. Mike, our translator, was waiting for us in the lobby when we returned and I was finally able to communicate with Elkin about the spider. As it turns out, it was merely a garden spider. It was not poisonous or malicious as my imagination had led me to believe. I don’t recall the specific name of the spider, but I know that Elkin did mention that he had never seen one quite so large. That explained why he was pointing at it, why he was amazed, and why he thought I would be interested.

Exercise Two

Using the starting phrases below (or similar phrases) continue writing descriptive, sense-oriented sentences about your own experiences. The sentences do not need to relate to each other or be about the same place, although they could ifyou so choose. Don't be afraid to imagine a place. Use active verbs. "Consider" is a verb stating condition and does not show action. As you work on these sentences, each could open a paragraph if you want to continue your thoughts.

____________________________________________________________________


The Streets _________________________________

Trees shade_________________________________

Buildings___________________________________

Light cascades_______________________________

The backdrop of sunset_________________________

Night noises_________________________________

Flies buzzed_________________________________

A man coughed_______________________________

In the grass_________________________________

The people here______________________________

Stone monuments_____________________________

Exercise One

Build a Scene


To help you get started, imagine a place you recently visited.
Fill in the blanks, where appropriate, with specific adjectives and nouns or prepositional phrases.


Time/Place:

Temperature/Season:


Lighting/Sounds/Smells

I see _________________________

I hear ________________________

I smell ________________________

I taste ________________________


Symbols/Images:



Movements:

I walk ________________________


I run _________________________


I hold _________________________



Dialogue:

Welcome

This is a forum for Creative Non-Fiction English 391, section 101.

Here you will post responses to readings from your textbook and fieldtrips. You will also be able to comment on the postings. The comment link is located at the bottom of all new postings.


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Class Format

• Monday – Readings and Exercises

[Post Your response to in-class readings every Monday]

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